In 2009, Kosmas received his Ptychio in Molecular Biology and Genetics from the Democritus University of Thrace, Alexandroupoli, Greece.

Since October 2010, he's been a member of the IGSDHD. During the rotation period, he worked on the following projects in the  laboratories of :

  • Prof. Dr. Angelika A. Noegel, Institute for Biochemistry I, Medical Faculty, University of Cologne, project: “Expression and functional analysis of CAP2”
  • Prof. Dr. Jürgen Dohmen, Institute for Genetics, University of Cologne, project: “Polyamine regulation of ODC and ODC antizyme (Oaz1)”
  • PD Dr. Niels Gehring, Institute for Genetics, University of Cologne, project: “Studying the interaction of ARS2 with protein complexes and RNA”

Since April  2011, he's been working on his PhD project in the group of Prof. Dr. Angelika A. Noegel. 

Project description

“Functional analysis of Cyclase-Associated Protein 2 (CAP2) and characterization of the skeletal muscle phenotype of CAP2 knock out mice”

CAP is a highly conserved protein that is essential for normal actin organisation by binding to G-actin and regulating actin filament dynamics. Loss of CAP results in defects in cell morphology, migration, endocytosis and development. Higher eukaryotes have two homologs of CAP, CAP1 and CAP2, which are closely related. CAP1 shows a broad tissue distribution, whereas CAP2 is significantly expressed only in brain, heart and skeletal muscle, and in skin. Furthermore, CAP2 is found in the nucleus in undifferentiated myoblasts and at the M-line of differentiated myotubes. During this thesis we will investigate the in vivo role of CAP2 throughout myogenesis and signal transduction processes.